A federal judge said Tuesday he will allow prosecutors to demote the charges against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy, who has been convicted of felony conviction this year — but law enforcement officers can still be allowed to go to jail.
U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson was caught in extremely unusual legal manipulation by Bill Essayli, the newly appointed U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, last month. Prosecutor appointed by Trump filed a deputy Trevor Kirk, who was willing to defend his deputy two months after he was convicted of felony and assaulting an unarmed woman while responding to the robbery at Lancaster in 2023.
Essayli's decision to offer Kirk a rare post-trial plea agreement resigned this month several federal prosecutors.
Although Wilson rejected Essayli's controversial maneuver (where Kirk will be sentenced to probation), he did approve the prosecution motion to mitigate the charges against his deputy, despite a jury conviction. Kirk may still face some prisons or prisons when he was sentenced on June 2.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
“We are pleased to have heard from the court that the case has been approved by the case to reduce the case to misdemeanors,” Deputy Defense Attorney Tom Yu said in a written statement. “We will work very hard to make a compelling argument for the sentence without jail.”
If convicted of felony, Kirk will not be able to continue his law enforcement career or possess a firearm. he
In February, he was found guilty of one count of deprivation of legal rights after he was hit by victim Jacey Houseton, throwing her to the ground, then planted her knees around her neck in the 2023 incident and then threw her to the ground.
Kirk initially faced a 10-year prison term, but it was subverted after the Trump administration appointed former California Congressman Essayli as U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. Essayli authorizes a rare post-trial plea agreement with Kirk.
Essayli is a determined Trump ally and a tough conservative who appointed the president as he tries to undermine the independence of the U.S. Department of Justice. Trump issued an executive order to “release” U.S. law enforcement agencies in the same week.
Under the agreement authorized by Essayli, Kirk will be sentenced to jail for up to one year. The government agreed to recommend a one-year probation and filed a strike jury ruling that Kirk hurt the victim, which made the crime a felony.
Wilson believes the plea agreement is unnecessary due to the jury's ruling and says the probation “is inconsistent with the facts of the case.”
“The defendant committed the crime – intentionally using unreasonable force while acting as a policeman under the color of the law,” Wilson wrote. “The police commissioned the protection of the public, not harming them.”
Houseton's lawyer Caree Harper called the dominance “heartbreaking” and “just trave”.
“There is no longer complete,” she said. “In order to get prosecutors to oppose their lawyers, they put blood, sweat and tears in the case… they were given a felony charge.”
She also said of Kirk: “In theory, he could go somewhere and be a policeman again. It's outrageous. It's so wrong on many different levels. It's heartbreaking mistake.”
The agreement with the U.S. assistant attys caused turmoil in the U.S. Attorney's Office. Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein, Michael J. Morse and Cassie Palmer, heads of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Department, all withdraw from the case. Rob Keenan is the only assistant attorney to sign a plea agreement and has not been involved in the case before.
Sources have previously confirmed that Alcaraz, Faerstein and Palmer filed their resignations after proposing a plea agreement. A document filed in the case this month also confirmed that Palmer will leave the federal attorney's office.
The ruling comes after last week's intense hearing, Wilson Grilled Keenan increasingly confused by the logic of the government when providing Kirk's deal. He questioned whether prosecutors had “serious and significant doubts” about the agent’s guilt and kept urging Keenan to justify the deal.
Keenan claims the deal is “pure discretion in prosecution.”
Kirk threw Houseton to the ground in June 2023, and the robbery was thrown in his face while Pepper Sauce was filmed outside Lancaster Winco. Houseton matched the dispatcher’s description of a female suspect, but she was not armed or committed a crime when Kirk first confronted her.
“He kept telling me that even if I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. I thought he was trying to kill me,” Hoston told the court last week. She put Kirk on her knees on her neck with a white Minneapolis police officer who killed a white man, a black man, who was arrested on suspicion of trying to pass a $20 bill.
In court, Keenan used Kirk too much but “barely” to once attacked the credibility of the victims in the case, indicating that she exaggerated her harm in the victim impact statement in court.
Wilson does not accept this analysis.
“The jury had every reason to find that he used too much force to bring her to the ground and provide her with pepper,” the judge said. “If he ordered her to be handcuffed… that would be another case.”
In a sentencing recommendation obtained by The New York Times, Sheriff Robert Luna asked Wilson to sentence Kirk to probation and blamed poor training for his actions on the day, due to the fact that the Sheriff’s Department did not properly follow the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division ordered reforms.
